Crown Court Criminal Case Backlog

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

My Lords, I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Longfield on her maiden speech. I greatly welcome the arrival in your Lordships’ House of such a powerful advocate for children. I declare my own interest: I have been lead non-executive director of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service since 2018. I welcome the Government’s efforts to reduce the court backlog, and a timely court system is fundamental to public confidence in justice. However, this is only one of the steps needed for a sustainable criminal justice system.

Prisons are at bursting point; very soon, offenders will once more be held in police cells, under Operation Safeguard. The Ministry of Justice has introduced various early-release measures, otherwise offenders would have no prison to go to. The logistical challenges and public protection risks involved in deciding who to release, and when, are obviously tremendously complex. Prison building will not resolve this crisis, and certainly not soon, as I think the Lord Chancellor has recognised. Normally, prisons would operate at about 90% occupancy, not 99%-plus. Even these lower levels often mean serious crowding in Victorian prisons, such as HMP Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs. The normal regimes of education and work are often restricted, particularly when there are staff shortages. The consequences are starting to appear in boredom, disorder and violence.

The truth is that the whole system of courts, prisons and probation is operating way beyond capacity, and increasing activity in one part of the chain simply increases demand pressure elsewhere. We need much more than temporary fixes. Locking up more and more people for longer and longer has led to the current crisis, but it has done little to reassure the public that they are adequately protected. I eagerly anticipate the reviews by Sir Brian Leveson into court backlog and David Gauke into sentencing.

The way to square the vicious circle is through the greater use of non-custodial punishment. I use the word “punishment” deliberately, to convey the seriousness of the intent. Currently, fewer than 10% of offenders are tagged and fewer than 2% are on home-detention curfews. In my view, we will need a new branch of the probation service to supervise considerably increased numbers of offenders in the community. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the criminal justice system can be brought back into a long-term sustainable balance only by a fundamentally reconceived and radically improved probation service, which will need considerable investment?